ثورة فلسطين - أسبابها ونتائجها
The Palestine Revolt: Its Causes and Consequences

Page 386

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تضطهدهم وتستذلهم، قال الله تعالى فيهم: ضُرِبَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ الذِّلَّةُ أَيْنَ مَا ثُقِفُوا إِلاَّ بِحَبْلٍ مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَحَبْلٍ مِّنَ النَّاسِ (آل عمران: 112) فالذلة فقد الملك والسلطان، وحبل الله ما حباهم به شرعه من حقوق العدل بدخولهم في ذمة الإسلام، وحبل الناس ما لقوه من حماية المسلمين من قبل، وما يلقونه من حماية بعض الدول الآن.

اليهود والإسلام والمسلمون

(3) من الحقائق الثابتة المعروفة في السيرة النبوية والتاريخ الخاص والعام أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم لمَّا هاجر من مكة إلى المدينة أقرَّ من كان في أرضها من قبائل اليهود على دينهم، وآمنهم على أنفسهم وأموالهم، على أن لا يوالوا ولا ينصروا عليه مشركي مكة وغيرهم من قومه، وكتب بينه وبينهم كتابًا في ذلك كانوا به أهل عهد وميثاق؛ ولكنهم كانوا (ينقضون عهدهم في كل مرة) وينصرون المشركين عليه في القتال، والمساعدة بالمال، حتى اضطر إلى قتالهم وإخراجهم من جواره؛ ولكن أصحابه ومن بعدهم من قومه لما فتحوا البلاد وسادوا العباد، أنقذوا اليهود من الاضطهاد وما كانت تسومهم الدول والأمم من الظلم والاستعباد، فلم يذوقوا من طعم العدل في القرون الماضية بعض ما ذاقوا في ظل الحكومات العربية وغيرها من الدول الإسلامية، فقد كانوا مساوين للمسلمين في الحقوق وكانوا يتلقون ما يشاءون من العلوم في المدارس والمساجد ببغداد والأندلس في صفوف المسلمين وحلق دروسهم كأنهم منهم.

اليهود وسلطان الكنيسة

(4) من الحقائق الثابتة المعروفة في تاريخ القرون الأخيرة أن اليهود الذين تلقوا العلوم في الأندلس، ولا سيما تلاميذ الفيلسوف ابن رشد كانوا من حملتها إلى أوربة ومن أسباب انتشارها فيها، وأنهم استطاعوا بتكافلهم وكيدهم أن يثأروا لأنفسهم ولأساتذتهم العرب من سلطان الكنيسة الكاثوليكية التي اضطهدتهم هم والعرب في الأندلس بالتقتيل والتشريد والإكراه على النصرانية، وذلك بما ألفوه من العصبية للعلوم وحرية الفكر التي ناصبت الكنيسة العداء في أوربة، وأثارت عليها القتال حتى ثلت عرشها وقوضت سلطانها السياسي من العالم.

English
translation

to persecute and humiliate them. God Most High said of them: “Humiliation was imposed upon them wherever they were found, except by a bond from God and a bond from people” (Āl ʿImrān 3:112). Humiliation means the loss of kingdom and authority. The bond from God is the just rights His law granted them when they entered the protection of Islam; the bond from people is the protection they formerly received from Muslims and now receive from some states.

Jews, Islam, and Muslims

(3) Among the established facts known from the Prophet's biography and from particular and general history, when the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, migrated from Mecca to Medina, he let the Jewish tribes living there keep their religion and secured their lives and property, on condition that they neither ally with nor aid the Meccan polytheists and others of his people against him. He made a written agreement with them, placing them under covenant with him. Yet they “broke their covenant every time” and supported the polytheists against him in battle and with money, until he was forced to fight them and expel them from his vicinity. But when his companions and later members of his people conquered lands and ruled their inhabitants, they saved the Jews from persecution and from the oppression and enslavement imposed on them by other states and peoples. In earlier centuries, the Jews had not tasted even a portion of the justice they experienced under Arab governments and other Islamic states. They had rights equal to those of Muslims and could study whatever subjects they wished in the schools and mosques of Baghdad and al-Andalus, in Muslim classes and study circles, as though they were among them.

The Jews and the authority of the Church

(4) Among the established facts known from the history of recent centuries, Jews educated in al-Andalus, especially students of the philosopher Ibn Rushd, were among those who carried that learning to Europe and helped spread it there. Through their mutual support and plotting, they were able to avenge themselves and their Arab teachers against the authority of the Catholic Church, which had persecuted them and the Arabs in al-Andalus through killing, displacement, and forced conversion to Christianity. They did so through their zeal for the sciences and freedom of thought, which opposed the Church in Europe and stirred up a struggle against it until they toppled its throne and destroyed its political power in the world.

Analysis

Riḍā completes his claim that Jewish subjection followed sin, then presents the Jews of Medina as habitual treaty breakers who forced Muhammad to fight and expel them. He contrasts that account with a sweeping claim that later Muslim rule protected and treated יהודים YEHUDIM equally. These are Riḍā's religious and historical judgments, not facts established by this essay. His final paragraph moves from Jewish learning in al-Andalus to a claim that Jews helped bring down Catholic political power; that argument continues on p. 387.

His two Qur'anic phrases are identifiable. Qur'an 3:112 contains the words about humiliation except through a bond from God and people, but it does not itself define humiliation as loss of rule or the two bonds as Riḍā does. Qur'an 8:56 contains the phrase about breaking a covenant every time, but quoting it does not establish the conduct of every Jewish group in Medina.

The document usually called the Constitution of Medina supports the existence of a compact involving Muhammad's community and named Jewish groups, with clauses preserving their religion and assigning mutual duties. Modern scholarship treats its composition and the identity of its Jewish parties as debated. It supports the pact and religious-autonomy part of Riḍā's account, but not his compressed claim that the Jewish tribes repeatedly broke it and therefore forced all the later fighting and expulsions.

Focused studies sharpen those limits. A history of medieval Spain says Jews and Christians under Muslim rule could retain their religion and customs, but paid special taxes and faced political restrictions. Research on medieval Jewish philosophy describes major intellectual flourishing in an Arabic and Islamic setting. Research on Arabic-to-Hebrew translation confirms that Jewish scholars carried Arabic scientific and philosophical works, including Ibn Rushd's, into Hebrew study in western Europe. Together these sources support protection, participation, and intellectual transmission, but not equal legal status, unrestricted access to every school or mosque, collective revenge, or the claim that Jewish transmission brought down Catholic political power.

The coercion Riḍā names in Christian Spain has a documented core. Jews were expelled in 1492, Castilian Muslims were required to convert or emigrate in 1502, and the Moriscos were expelled in 1609-1610. Scholarship assigns these measures to royal policy and institutions including the Spanish Inquisition, which operated under royal control. This supports his references to killing, displacement, and coerced conversion while making his assignment of the whole process to the Catholic Church alone too simple.

The Torah contains a differentiated rule on interest. Deuteronomy 23:20-21 forbids taking interest from a brother and permits it from a foreigner. This gives a textual basis for Riḍā's reference to a rule that distinguishes insiders from outsiders. It does not authorize oppression, prove that Jews generally consumed other peoples' wealth, or establish how later Jewish law interpreted and applied the passage.

The parties and later conflicts in Medina cannot be compressed into one repeated breach by a single Jewish body. Research on the Constitution of Medina says the principal Jewish tribes are not named among its Jewish participants and may have been bound by separate agreements. Traditional accounts also distinguish the conflicts and their outcomes. This does not settle every disputed detail, but it makes Riḍā's formula that they broke their pact every time too broad.